ACG pamphlet on identity politcs

[alanjjohnstone]

The ACG presents its important new pamphlet on identity politics –

The Politics of Division: An engagement with
identity politics

A contribution to the debate

To be human is to negotiate a balance between individual identity and collective action. We are each simultaneously individuals and social animals. This pamphlet does not seek to negate identity. Identity is important to our humanity, as well as being a major focus for oppression.

What it seeks to do, rather, is to place revolutionary politics in the collective sphere. When anarchist-communists echo Kropotkin in saying “What we proclaim is The Right to Well-Being: Well-Being for All!” we are advancing a vision for a free society, the society we want to build.

In recent decades politics has moved a long way from expressing what it is we want to achieve and has instead refocused on expressing who it is I am and what I believe my heritage or essential characteristics to be, and this is often an emotive and painful issue, especially where, as so often, there
has been a history of oppression and subjugation. While these are indeed important enquiries and will of course inform each individual’s perspective on what needs to change in our quest for a better society, this pamphlet argues that to be effective revolutionary politics must be about that shared future we seek to build. What makes each of us an anarchist communist – or whatever vision it is you might hold – is that set of values
we will build the future upon.

This pamphlet is presented with respect for our many struggles and in anger at our many experiences of oppression, determined that our
collective efforts will build a better future.

Cover price £3.

Ordered through social media/website/email below £2 plus postage.

Can be ordered from our website: http://www.anarchistcommunism.org or
contact: londonacg@gmail.com

[ALB]

I have got hold of and read this 25-page pamphlet attacking “identity politics” as divisive. The first 21 pages are what we say, but on page 22 they contradict what they had written up to then by saying they “support the self-organisation of oppressed groups into autonomous groups.”

This is opposition to organisations that “have (and some still do) pronounced that the separate autonomous organisation of specific groups is diversionary and contrary to a class analysis.”

Yes, some organisations still do.

[alanjjohnstone]

Your comment resulted in a backlash on Libcom. To be expected.

http://libcom.org/forums/announcements/new-acg-pamphlet-id-politics-18082021

[ZJW]

(I thought I posted the following here, but can’t find it now, so it must have only been on libcom that I posted it.)

The International Communist Current (ICC) also reviewed the ACG pamphlet and similarly have a problem with the ‘autonomous’ part:

https://en.internationalism.org/content/17126/acg-and-identity-politics-very-inadequate-break

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